RustyJL

Buellwinkle you are a good man. Thank you for clarifying this!

Most people use standard PoE but for 12V, I would limited to very small runs, a few meters at most.

I must have misunderstood POE...

So is standard POE 48VDC? Can you feed 48VDC POE to a device that only takes 12VDC over POE?

Sorry I am confused now!

So for a short run of Cat5 cable you would use POE, otherwise have the power going direct to the IP camera and you could have up to 100m of Cat5 to send the data back to the router?

Most of the time I would say that the camera will be very close to the router and power supply, but I can envisage situations where I would want to have the camera some distance from the router/power supply.

Looks like an ordinary connector on ours. Probably get it at any electronics supply store. Be careful on pushing a few amps of 12V through Cat5. If it's a meter or so, maybe fine but you may lose half the 12V if it's a 50m cable. Cat6 or 7 may help but it may pay to run a thicker gauge wire just for the 12V at the same time you run the Cat5.

Ok. I thought you could push 12V through Cat5 cable up to 100m from the POE?

The ACTi KCM-5611 can be powered by 12V and you can certainly cut the wires from a power adapter for the cradlepoint.

Thanks mate, I knew about the 12V supply to the camera but would like to run a Cat5 cable from the router end so that I only need one power source. Just wasn't sure if I could cut that cable on the router and run 12VDC straight into the router. Do you know if it is a proprietary power plug that goes into the Cradlepoint or is it available at any electronics store?

For a standalone arrangement using 12V battery

Acti IP camera likely the KCM5611

Cradlepoint MBR95 3G router

POE splitter injector - http://www.ebay.com/itm/PoE-Splitter-PoE-Injector-2port-RJ45-1port-DC-5-5mm-2-1mm-input-/280999243490?pt=US_Network_Switch_Power_Supplies&hash=item416cdc2ee2

How easy is it to chop down the DC plug on the MBR95 and attach alligator clips to run it off 12V?

So when do we get to see your deer cam images and/or live feed

It looks like a cheap place to get them but I'd say they are violating ACTI's policy

http://www.acti.com/corporate_old/mapPolicy.asp

So I would say you would get no technical/after sales support and any warranty would be void.

List of authorised resellers in USA

http://www.acti.com/corporate_old/disti2.asp?CATEGORY=United States

Yes it is the dahua 8962a mounted ~25' up on a tree.

What have you got this recording to - an NVR attached to the camera or is this the substream sent over a celluar network?

Very cool setup, am interested in doing something similar over here for pigs/foxes!

Does the Acti NVR software have a similar capability to Blue Iris?

PIR would mean the subject of the event trigger would have to be fairly close to the camera?

Reading a few posts, appears video motion detection is flawed in that shadows can set the recording off.

How does the Acti 5611 fare in this department with the detection zones being set?

Is it not easier just to have direct link sent via email with pre and post footage.

 

Having NVR/ dvr or camera sending full video is going to take time

When you say direct link, what exactly do you mean? A link where you can access the footage direct from the NVR via the internet?

How long it takes to email you depends on how many pictures you want, how fast your connection is and how long it takes for your phone to pickup messages. If you use POP it could be every 15 minutes, if you use say gmail, it could be a few seconds.

 

Many cameras have email alerts, nothing new or special. For example, with ACTi cameras you can email pictures or video with Axis you are limited to pictures. Dahua on the other hand can only email you alerts, no pictures or video.

So you can setup the KCM5611 to send any length video to your email?

Typically I would only want the video to be 5 minutes maximum.

Can someone enlighten me as to how LPR works? I gather the video analytics searches the image for a reflective surface then there is some sort of optical character recognition software searches the reflective surface for alphanumerics? I presume the camera must take at least 30FPS to have any sort of luck. Black and white images seem to be best, why is this?

During daylight, it might/should work...

But how about night?

 

Attached is a LPR camera snapshot. That's my point

Ok thanks.

What camera did you use for this shot and what settings? How fast was the vehicle going?

Also, what LPR software are you using?

Some of the cameras that are talking about here. At daylight, with no highway speeds, any camera should/could take a pic of a car's plate number (trigerring it's another subject). I was just courious how things go on during low light/night light.

Ok, to be perfectly clear, my camera is not an IP camera - the IP cam is something I am trying to get funding for, but it won't be anytime in the near future . It is a basic body worn video camera that records the footage in *.avi format. I just want to run this footage through LPR software to see how it works.

Is this possible?

I'm courious of any footage during night, front capture (headlights on).

 

Has anyone got any samples?

Footage using what though... An IP cam or my HD camera? I am fairly confident my HD camera will be useless at night as the headlights will throw up a blinding wash. Daytime it is excellent at slower speeds, I've never tried it a highway speeds.

Typically, the area that I would have it setup will have the vehicles going no faster than 40kmh (25mph in the old scale).

Ok gents thanks for your help. At this stage i only want to record the footage using a Muvi HD camera and then feed this through LPR recognition software to evaluate the usefulness thereof. Down the track i am hopeful of getting funding for a single Acti 5610 cam for its excellent low light ability and couple this with a Ubiquiti link for real time viewing and recording from a remote location.

I want to set up a HD (1080p, 30FPS) camera parallel to the road which is powered by 12v and has sufficient memory to record for 9 hours at a time.

I then want to feed this footage into software that will capture and recognise the plates and dump this information into a file. Better yet, I would like to be able to configure the system to recognise known plates and then dump these into a file including time/date. I could then manually review the footage. I have read about the need for the camera to be facing in a reasonably straight alignment to the vehicles direction of travel and the number plates need to be fairly clean and not obstructed.

Perhaps in the future I can look at getting ANPR set up using live footage from an IP CCTV. Just want to try out some software first.

Ideally, this software would be freeware for the first 30 days so that I could evaluate it.

Ideas anyone?

Full zoom at 150 meters gives you about a 28 horz x 21 vert field of view which would be tough to identify a plate standing still.

 

The effective range of the built in IR is 20 meters but the zoom will be able to view your driving away from camera scenario well beyond that distance. Search for a field of view calculator to test some scenarios your self, the max zoom on the camera is 84.6 mm.

 

The IR LEDS are very bright in darkness when viewed directly, they are less noticeable at a tangent though considering the housing hides them somewhat.

 

Since you mentioned casual observer I will mention the camera also has a very loud audible click when switching in and out of day/night which would be accompanied by the LEDS going on/off.

Mate, you sound like you are operating one of these cameras. Any chance you could take a photo of it operating at night facing front on to give me an idea about the brightness of the LED's and another pic at say 50m? Also, could you put some footage up publicly to show the zoom on moving vehicles at a distance?

The part of Australia I am in is not flush with suppliers of this equipment, to get a demo of this stuff is next to impossible.

Thanks.

I have seen a few Youtube videos showing the 18x zoom ability of these cameras, however I can not discern how far away the objects are from the camera. Also, these shots are always in well lit areas in the middle of surburbia.

Would the KCM 5611 be able to zoom in far enough from 150m to read number plates on vehicles doing 60kmh in broad daylight travelling at an angle of 60 degrees or less?

Given the excellent night time ability of this camera, at what distance would the camera be able to read the number plate of a vehicle travelling at 10kmh directly away from it? This being without the IR function working and no external lighting available. I know this is a massive ask of any camera... please don't shout me down for asking so much

How bright are the IR LED's on this camera in total darkness? Would they stick out like the proverbial from 50m to the casual observer if the camera were seen front on, but mounted 2-3m above ground?

You could run the camera staight off of the battery since it does 12v input. Depending on the other electronics like router etc. you may want to find some that also run off 12vdc so you dont have to use any kind of converters that will rob some of your battery time. Can you add a small solar cell panel to the mix that will at least keep the battery running longer? They have some solar charging devices that you can hook to the battery and it will also act sort of like a regulator and output the 12v DC.

 

I cant remember on the ubiquiti units I have worked with if the POE injector had a mains plug or a wall wart which would probably be the wrong voltage anyway (24v?). Of course an inverter would work but it will eat some of your battery just to do the conversion.

 

Seems like 2 parallel deep cycle marine batteries would give you more than 2weeks, maybe one battery with a solar cell could do 2 weeks.

Thanks mate.

Looking at the Ubiquiti units, I could plug the IP camera directly into the unit and power it via PoE direct from there. I could send the MPEG and H.264 to the receiving side which would have a 240v supply which is where the NAS and 3g connection would be housed.

I have considered the solar panel idea - it will all depend on where the job site is, as this will need to be hidden from casual observers. Would 40W worth of panels be sufficient to keep this topped up?

How difficult are these Ubiquiti units to set up? Reading a few reviews suggests that I would need to have a good knowledge of networking to set it up? I like their ability to reliably send the signal up to 10kms between points.

I am doing some research at the moment for work.

Looking at the KCM 5611 for excellent low light performance and 18x zoom.

This unit will be remotely mounted away from conventional power sources. Hence the need to power it from 12v battery.

I expect that it would be powered via a 4 port POE router via Cat5 up to 100m away, using the 12v source. If this is not feasible, is it possible to chop down the camera's 240v cord and plug it into a 12v battery using alligator clips?

My next problem is where to send the video. Stream the MPEG footage to a NAS via Cat5 cable, also running off a battery source located with the router. The H.264 would then be sent wirelessly over a 3g connection by way of a 3g usb stick, but I would have to have another 3g router connected to the POE router. I can not find a POE router with a usb port to allow a 3g stick.

Otherwise, send the MPEG and H.264 over a dedicated link to a remote computer that is powered by mains power, something like this (although I imagine the power required for this transmitter would make it a main supply only proposition):

http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-NanoStation-NSM5-5GHz-MIMO/dp/tech-data/B0049AVWAO/ref=de_a_smtd

The battery I plan on using is a large truck battery (like an N70ZZ - 100Ah).

My question is - is this feasible and how many batteries would you need to link up in parallel for this system to survive two weeks in the field, recording motion activations?

Korgoth - how far away was that car in the first part of the video? Looks like 50m at least? Excellent clarity and detail at night. I have just emailed the Oz distributor for availability and price.

Ok good stuff. In regards to storing the 1080 HD footage direct from the camera, does this have to be done using a NAS connected directly the the IP camera? I would like to minimise the amount of assets in the one location. Also, is it possible to set it up so that the camera is connected to a wireless router that sends the HD data to a nearby LAN. This LAN could be connected to the internet for remotely controlling the camera. Sorry for such basic questions... I suppose we all have to start somewhere!

As i understand it i will need... IP camera hooked up to the router either wireless or 3g, then a NAS (or can i use any old harddrive?) at home which is connected to either the LAN directly linked to the camera or internet. Can you make recommendations as to this other required hardward?

Thanks